


Who Gives This Man

by Brumeier



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Pre-Series, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 14:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1608155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carolyn is trying to plan the perfect wedding. When she pays a visit to William Ellison behind Jim's back, the family reconciliation she has planned doesn't turn out at all like she expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Gives This Man

Carolyn Plummer had been planning her wedding, in a vague sort of way, since she was a little girl. Every wedding she attended for a friend or a family member was a chance to take note of what she liked and what she didn’t, and mentally file the information away. When it finally came time for her own wedding, when Jim finally proposed after she’d almost given up hope on him, she knew exactly what she wanted.

“Taste this,” she said, holding up a forkful of chocolate cake. “It has raspberry filling.”

Jim obediently opened his mouth. Carolyn slid the cake in and then waited expectantly, but he only shrugged.

“It tastes the same as the last three you made me try.”

“They all had different fillings,” Carolyn said patiently. “Do you want to try the German chocolate again?”

Jim looked like he was contemplating stabbing himself in the eye with the fork, but he nodded anyway. He’d been only peripherally involved in the wedding plans, having volunteered to make rental reservations and setting up appointments at Carolyn’s direction. It was a cliché, that husbands-to-be only had to show up on the big day, but Carolyn got the feeling that Jim would’ve been happy to do just that. And for a man who needed to have a say in anything and everything that affected him directly it was…unusual.

She fed him another piece of cake and hesitated before broaching a topic that had become an unexpected bone of contention between them.

“Jim. About your father.”

Carolyn’s field was forensics, but she’d also become well-versed in deciphering the clues of Jim Ellison. His body language immediately screamed his unwillingness to discuss anything related to his family: he pushed back from the table, his jaw clenched and every muscle tensed as if he was preparing to flee.

Over the last few months it had become clear to Carolyn that she was living with two different men. There was the Jim who was kind, open and thoughtful, who brought her flowers and cooked her dinner and rubbed her feet at night. And then there was the Jim who sat stony-faced beside her at the cake tasting table, hard and closed off and keeping secrets.

“I know you don’t want to talk about this, but it’s your wedding. _Our_ wedding. It’s important to me that you have family there to support you.” Carolyn knew this was partly her fault. If she’d shown more interest in Jim’s family earlier in their relationship maybe she could’ve helped resolve things sooner. But he hadn’t ever wanted to talk about them and she hadn’t pushed, particularly when her own family – her sister Allie in particular – provided enough of a distraction.

“I have plenty of people coming,” Jim replied tersely. 

“Our mutual friends from work? A couple of your old Army buddies?” Carolyn picked at one of the cake samples, methodically crumbling the chocolate cake out from under the icing. “I’m talking about family, Jim.”

“You’re my family,” he said. “I have to get back to work.”

Jim dropped a kiss on her cheek on his way out. It would’ve been a sweet thing for him to say if he’d sounded like he meant it, but instead it had come out sounding trite. Sometimes Carolyn wasn’t sure she was making the right decision, marrying him, but she was certain she could coax out the good Jim and banish the angry, secretive Jim given enough time.

Maybe she just needed to take action. Jim was obviously unable to make the first move, not on his own, and wasn’t it her job as his future wife to help him through the hard times? Surely he’d see that she was right, once she had everything set to rights.

“Have you decided?” the bakery owner asked.

Carolyn nodded. “Yes. Yes I have.”

*o*o*o*

It wasn’t hard to find William Ellison, particularly for someone who held several advanced degrees and worked concurrently with the Cascade Police Department. What surprised Carolyn was that the man lived and worked in Cascade. She didn’t understand how Jim could live in such close proximity with his father and never make an attempt to contact him. Of course, she couldn’t imagine not having any kind of relationship with her own father.

Getting away at lunch time was easy enough. Jim was out on a case and everyone else assumed she had wedding business to take care of. William’s office was not in one of the shiny corporate buildings downtown, as she’d anticipated, but in a two-story brick home in the historic district. The signage out front was understated and gave no indication as to what the actual business housed inside entailed: _Cascades International Group_. 

Carolyn parked on the street and fed change into the meter. She was nervous about meeting Jim’s father, particularly since she hadn’t mentioned to Jim that she had planned to do so. It was risky, keeping something this important from her fiancé, but as the old saying went it was easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Besides, the bride was supposed to get the wedding she wanted, and she wanted her in-laws to be there.

“Mr. Ellison with be with you shortly,” said the conservatively dressed woman at the reception desk.

Carolyn took a seat in the waiting area, which was just off the front entry in what at one time had probably been a formal parlor. The inside of the house was just as unassuming as the exterior – warm earth tones, hardwood floors polished to a sheen, furniture covered in subtle patterns. All every elegant.

It was only a matter of minutes before the receptionist’s phone rang and she nodded at Carolyn. “He’ll see you now. First door at the top of the stairs.”

Nerves and natural confidence warred with each step, but backing out never even entered her mind. Instead she firmed up her resolve. She was there to make things right for Jim and that was what mattered. 

The tasteful brass plate on the door at the top of the stairs, which was half open, indicated that the office belonged to the CEO. Carolyn gave a light knock.

“Come in.”

The man behind the desk was clearly an Ellison. Carolyn could see Jim in his strong chin, the patrician line of his nose, and his stone-faced expression. He stood when she came in, dressed impeccably in a three-piece gray suit, and waved her into a chair.

“You must be Miss Plummer.”

“Thank you for seeing me,” Carolyn said. She sat and had to make a concerted effort not to fidget with her purse. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“It’s only natural that a father would be curious to meet the woman his son is about to marry.” William settled back behind the desk, tugging at the cuffs of his shirt. “You’re not here to offer me an invitation.”

“No, I’m sorry. I just…whatever’s wrong between you and Jim, I’d like to help you fix it.” Carolyn looked him in the eye. “You’re his father and you should be at the wedding.”

“He won’t be happy that you’ve come to see me. Are you planning to tell him?” 

“Yes,” Carolyn said, though she wasn’t exactly sure about that. If things didn’t go her way, would there really be any point in telling Jim about it? “Is there anything I can do to help the two of you at least have a conversation?”

William leaned back in his chair, hands steepled. “You seem like a very nice woman, Miss Plummer, but I wouldn’t recommend you getting in the middle of our family problems.”

“You’ll be part of my family soon. Won’t you even try?” Carolyn implored. She didn’t understand how two grown men could have reached such an impasse. “Maybe if you made the first move –”

“You’re aware of his time in Peru?” William interrupted. His eyes, a bit darker blue than his son’s, hardened like the rest of his face. 

“Yes, of course. I mean, we haven’t really talked much about it. It’s very hard for him to recall the specifics.” Peru was another taboo subject. Jim claimed to have no memory of the time he spent stranded in the jungle but Carolyn didn’t believe that. Eighteen months didn’t just vanish from memory, no matter the circumstances. She’d hated having to hunt down the magazine and newspaper articles but she had an obsessive need to know.

“Imagine what it was like, thinking my son was dead only to have him miraculously recovered, and without so much as a scratch on him. I made every effort to contact him once he returned to Cascade, Miss Plummer, but he refused to meet with me. Refused to talk to me.” William’s hard edges softened a bit and his voice was full of regret. “I made a lot of mistakes with my boys. Too many, perhaps. I made them compete for my attention, something they should’ve had without asking. I was so focused on work that I let things slide. Did you know that Jim was an athlete all through school?”

“Yes. He’s still very athletic.” She and Jim had been camping several times, and he worked out at the PD gym almost every day. One of the things he never had trouble discussing was his successes in high school football and track.

“I wasn’t there for him then and I won’t force myself on him now. If and when he’s ready to see me, he will. I’m not sure that’ll happen in my lifetime.”

Carolyn didn’t know what to say to that. Things weren’t turning out at all as she’d expected. For one thing, she’d assumed that Jim was the one who had been rejected by his father, but that certainly couldn’t be the case if the man had contacted him. To not give his own father a second chance after such a life-changing event was incomprehensible to her.

“What about Stephen? And their mother?”

William was all business again, as implacable as if he were discussing the weather. “Grace was a worse parent than even I was, for the brief time she tried her hand at it. She hasn’t had contact with any of us in over twenty years. I wouldn’t know where to find her, and I can guarantee you that my son wants even less to do with her than he does me. Stephen…you can certainly contact him. We don’t talk much but I can give you his number.”

“Yes, thank you.” Carolyn accepted the neatly-printed number from him, written on the back of one of his own business cards, but she knew she wouldn’t call. Whatever had gone wrong in the Ellison family was too big for her to fix before the wedding, if it could be fixed at all.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Miss Plummer, but are you sure you want to marry my son?”

“Of course I do!” she protested with a vehemence she didn’t really feel. “I love Jim. He’s a good man, Mr. Ellison.”

“I’m sure he is. But you know, you’re really not his type.”

Carolyn opened her mouth and then snapped it shut again. She didn’t want to know what William thought Jim’s type was, or why she didn’t fit the bill. If he was trying to give her more wedding jitters than she already had, well…mission accomplished. She debated just leaving, but decided it couldn’t hurt to have one last say in the matter, since it was highly unlikely she’d ever see this man again.

“If you’re trying to make me second-guess Jim’s feelings for me, it won’t work. He loves me. And I love him. I’m sorry that you two can’t patch things up but I can assure you I won’t bother you about it again. It was nice meeting you.”

“Good luck, Miss Plummer,” William said, standing when she did. His lips twitched in the hint of a smile. “You’re going to need it.”

*o*o*o*

The day of the wedding was beautiful, especially by Cascade standards: the weather was warm but not too hot, and sunny. The church ceremony was beautiful, and Jim never faltered as they recited their vows. In fact, the only shadow cast on the day was Carolyn’s knowledge that Jim didn’t have a single family member amongst the assembled crowd. She had her father to give her away. Jim had no-one.

Two weeks later the wedding announcement appeared in the paper, which Carolyn’s mother had insisted upon, and she knew when Jim read it because his jaw clenched so tight she was worried he’d never get it open again. She didn’t know what had made her include his parents’ names. Some perverse desire to make both Jim and his father acknowledge the empty spaces at the wedding, perhaps.

Jim didn’t say anything about it, though, just turned the page and checked the sports scores like it was nothing. And maybe to him it was.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Inspired by my very first TS chat! Thanks, TS gals, for such a fun time! I give to you the sadness of Jim not having family at the wedding, the Two Jim theory, the wedding announcement that acknowledged people who hadn’t even attended, and Jim’s dad’s nod to the fact that the only person his son could be happy with he hadn’t even met yet. (::coughs:: Blair ::coughs::) ::grins::
> 
> Thanks also to my hubby for going through this with me and pointing out areas that needed a bit more clarification.


End file.
